The Hart Flies Fast
by Lomonaaeren
Summary: HPSS slash. If he is going to have Harry Potter as a reward, Severus knows he will have to seduce him. But Harry Potter may not be so unwilling to be caught. Twoshot. COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: **The Hart Flies Fast

**Disclaimer: **J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit

**Pairings: **Harry/Snape

**Warnings: **Present tense, brief angst, AU (in that Severus is alive)

**Rating: **R

**Summary: **If Harry Potter is going to be his reward, Severus knows he must seduce him. But perhaps Potter doesn't want to run so far.

**Author's Notes: **An Advent fic for arynwy, who asked for a fic about Severus deciding he deserved a reward and it being Harry. The "Hart" in the title is a male deer in his prime. The second part of this will be posted tomorrow.

**The Hart Flies Fast**

Severus decides it not long after the war. That he deserves a reward. That he hasn't served and struggled and made sacrifices in a cause that should never have been his own this long for nothing. That the world owes him something, but the world won't grant it to him, so he will have to _take _it.

He knows that. He is prepared to wait for some time until the perfect reward reveals itself to him, and then concentrate all his newly freed energies on the pursuit of it.

But it is not until the memorial celebration a year after the war that he makes his choice. Or has it made for him.

* * *

><p>The memorial celebration is held on the Hogwarts grounds, of course, outside Albus's tomb. Severus pauses when he passes it, but then he turns and walks on. He has many things to say to the dead man who resides there, but he cannot say any of them with an audience.<p>

Minerva has apparently decided that the ideal form of a memorial celebration is to light enormous bonfires all across the ground and have them linked by stone pathways, Transfigured from the grass. Around one bonfire are tables of delicate sweets, prepared by the house-elves of the castle, around another drinks, around another moving images that recreate scenes from the Battle of Hogwarts, and so on. Severus pauses to appreciate Fenrir Greyback being brained by a crystal ball, and someone moves behind him.

Severus turns around, one careful hand on his wand. Although the Ministry has declared him innocent thanks to a careful combination of interviews with Albus's portrait, Pensieve memories, Veritaserum, and blackmail, not everyone believes it, or is inclined to abide by it.

But the man behind him does.

Severus receives a whirling impression of darkness, of black hair swaying atop a head that is taller than it has any right to be, and blazing green eyes that make his chest ache in ways that it has no right to do. The green-eyed man thrusts a crystal ball into his hand, and Severus stares at it. There's a name floating in twisting, sparkling letters inside it, but he can't immediately make it out.

"It's my name," says Harry Potter, his voice not slurred with drunkenness as Severus assumed it would be-or would have assumed, if he thought about it at all-before the boy dared approach him. "They're distributing them all over the grounds. I asked McGonagall if she could stop them, and she said of course not. Will you shatter it or something? Then at least there'll be one less of the damn things."

Severus looks up again, a bit conflicted. On the one hand, he agrees the crystal ball is an abomination that deserves shattering. On the other hand, he was not made to agree with Potters.

But this Potter is different than Severus has ever seen. He is wearing dark robes that don't bear the mark of any particular group, although Severus thought for certain the boy had gone into Auror training. The robes blend well into the shadows of the dancing bonfires, and seem to provide a contrast that makes his green eyes shine like emeralds on the velvet of a jewelbox.

Surely it must be the contrast that makes them shine so, and nothing else? Severus is not certain, but he knows they still make his breath catch.

"What are you doing?" he demands sternly, and hands the crystal ball back. "I notice that you are still not giving the Headmistress the courtesy of a title-"

"Oh, she told me I could call her McGonagall," says Potter, with a rude shrug, and turns the ball around in his hands. "Having to be called Headmistress all the time _turns _her head, she says. Sure you don't want the chance?"

Severus sneers, although he's aware, if Potter is not, that it lacks the force it should have. Nothing is as it should be tonight. "I am not obsessed with the chance to either save or destroy any item with your name on it, Potter."

"Pity, the way some people are," Potter says sadly, and then casts the crystal globe up into the air and draws his wand.

The spell he uses is nonverbal, and performed with such a powerful flourish of his arm that Severus cannot tell what the wand movement is. The crystal globe explodes from the inside, the fiery letters of Potter's name catching real fire and burning out in a brilliant white flare. Each shard has its attendant flame, which burns it up before it hits the ground or endangers anyone. That doesn't prevent some people from crying out in surprise.

"Are you mad, Potter?" Severus asks, lowering his voice. "Has the war utterly _diminished _your care for others' lives, instead of increasing it?"

He really did assume it would have the opposite effect. But on the other hand, he also thought Potter would go into the Aurors. Perhaps he should stop assuming things until he has some idea of the consequences of his assumptions.

Perhaps he should look away before his stomach can swoop and rise, the way it's doing now as Potter winks at him.

"Not mad," Potter says. "In fact, there are _some _lives I have a greater care for than ever before." He plucks at the dark robes. "These are based on your robes, Snape, did you know? I find them easy to use when I want to hide in the shadows."

"You want to hide in the shadows, and yet you came here," says Severus. He would like to look pointedly at the remains of the destroyed globe, but there aren't any.

"Oh, I'm here as a personal favor for some friends," Potter says, and shrugs. "But when they want me to make a speech, they're going to find me missing." Abruptly, he straightens up and turns around, his wand whipping out from him. Severus doesn't know this spell, either, which erupts from him in a straight line and creates a silver net, snaring around some portion of the darkness and dragging it closer.

Severus rolls his eyes. "Who is this? Some worshipper of yours who was not sufficiently penitent?"

"Nope," Potter says, which makes Severus's fingers itch to correct his language. "Someone who has a knife and was creeping up behind you to stab you in the back. Or maybe he was just going to scratch your arm and go his way. I wouldn't know. I'm more into spells than potions." He grins and steps back.

Severus stares down in silent shock at a thin, moustached face he knows-of course he knows it. This is Ernest Burr, who tried to pretend a few months ago that he had done the majority of the research for one of Severus's newly-discovered potions. Severus had flayed him alive with a widely-quoted-among-brewers letter and thought no more about it.

And he does have a dagger in one hand, the edge shimmering in a sickly way with a dark poison.

"Now he's not a problem," Potter says, and bows his head, and starts away.

"Wait!" Severus cries after him involuntarily, and Potter turns around. Severus steps near and lowers his voice so Burr cannot hear. "Are you the Vigilante?"

Stories of this individual (or group, as Severus always thought) started circulating after the war. Most of the captured Death Eaters haven't fallen to the Aurors. They've ended up in silver nets in the Auror offices, or trussed in the Atrium, dazed and unable to remember what had happened to them. Severus had strengthened his wards when he first heard. Someone who hunted Death Eaters might also come after him, pardon or not.

Potter grins and nods. "Yes. I decided the Aurors had too many rules for me. And I also discovered last year that I had a bit of a taste for adventure." He shrugs. "Nice seeing you again, Snape."

And he disappears into the night while Severus stands there staring after him, celebration and captive alike forgotten until Burr begins to blubber.

* * *

><p>That is the night Severus decides what his reward will be.<p>

It is, in so many ways, the easy choice, the simple one. Who else alive has enough prestige to satisfy Severus's desire for someone worthy of him? Because he wants others to acknowledge that his chosen reward is worthy, not only himself.

Who else possesses a certain level of understanding of Severus and his past, even if that understanding must perhaps be changed perforce?

Who else has Lily's eyes?

But it does not matter if the choice is simple, if it is also the _right _one.

Severus begins to plan, but he finds it is not simple to catch up to Potter. There is a reason the Vigilante has remained free and beyond the reach of even the Ministry's most careful Aurors. Severus studies the rumors and tracks of his obsession as well as the times and places Potter tends to show up, and finally decides the best place to wait will be the large party Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley are holding in honor of their wedding.

He has not been invited, but _that _does not matter. Polyjuice is a wonderful thing.

* * *

><p>The fifth time that someone calls Severus "Auntie Muriel," he begins to wonder if Polyjuice is indeed such a wonderful thing.<p>

But he returns as snide an answer as his target would, from his observation of her, and goes back to scanning the party in front of him. The grounds of the Burrow are surging with Weasleys, but nothing in the world could hide those green eyes and that skill with spells from him, he's certain.

It does take longer to find Potter this time than it did at the memorial celebration. Severus gets jostled by shrieking ginger children, drunk redheads who want to settle some old score with the auntie they think he is, people trying to slap everyone in sight on the back on general principles, and adolescents who think every piece of flat ground is a dance floor. By the time he comes to rest against the side of the Burrow itself, Severus is panting with soft ire.

Then everything is worth it, or falls away from him and seems worth it, because a pair of green eyes winks at him and Potter drawls, "Interesting disguise, but Auntie Muriel would have snapped at me twice by now."

Severus turns, and does not even think to ask himself how Potter managed to spot him through the Polyjuice. It truly, truly does not matter, not when Potter is clad in ordinary green dress robes, and toasting him with a huge goblet of pumpkin juice. He doesn't look at all like the dangerous Vigilante now. For a moment, Severus wonders what he saw in him, and prepares to be disappointed, just like so many people have disappointed him before.

But Potter looks straight at him, and the cool, dangerous gaze makes Severus catch his breath. And he reminds himself that someone who can see through one of _his _Polyjuice disguises-more, do that and know that it is Severus and not someone else-is a force to be reckoned with.

Especially in terms of attraction.

"Do you know why I am here?" Severus asks, lowering his voice for emphasis the way he did the night of the memorial celebration.

Potter considers that, then says, "No," and tosses back most of his drink. "Want some Firewhisky?" he asks, turning and signaling one of the floating trays that dart about the mess and respond to specific hand signals. Severus knew them the moment he saw them for Granger's spellwork, since her moronic spouse, along with the family she's marrying into, would never come up with anything half so clever.

"I am here because I could not stay away," Severus says, and he pitches his voice to sound as mysterious and alluring as he can when he is in the body of a Weasley relative.

Potter blinks at him, takes a glass from the tray that has drifted up to him, and then turns and faces Severus directly. Severus blinks, and takes the drink Potter hands to him even though he doesn't want it. It's like being looked at by a beast out of distant, dangerous dreams, to have the full regard of those eyes turned on him.

He likes it. Of course he likes it. He wouldn't be chasing Potter if he didn't like it.

"You couldn't stay away from Ron and Hermione's wedding," Potter repeats. He sounds as if he's turning the words over and looking for some mystic meaning in them, or at least a Potions recipe.

Severus rolls his eyes. "No. I could not stay away from _you_."

Potter only looks at him with more baffled eyes. And then he nods. "Oh, right. You had some debt that you wanted to pay back?"

"_I _was the one who saved myself," says Severus flatly, appalled that Potter apparently believes the lies spread by Rita Skeeter's damnable new book, which insists Potter came back in order to rescue Severus from Nagini's venom. "Not you. As a result of my foresight in creating an antivenin against the Dark Lord's snake."

"I wasn't referring to that," says Potter, and props his chin on his fist. "I was talking about the vengeance you probably feel you owe me. For being my father's son or looking into your Pensieve or something."

Severus takes a long step closer. Well, at least he wants to. He gets rather confined by Aunt Muriel's skirt, and Potter has to lean forwards and help him disentangle himself.

Potter's hands are swift and sure, and his eyes alight with laughter. He is _so close_, and Severus decides he cannot help himself, which means that he need not be responsible for most of what he does, either. He puts his hands on Potter's and arrests their swift motion, holding them trapped.

Potter looks at him with kindling eyes. "I know I owe you a lot," he whispers. "But I'm not going to stand still and let you take something out of my hide that should have been taken out of my dad's, either."

"I do not mean that," Severus whispers right back. This moment can't feel more intense or intimate than it does right now, with Potter's gaze holding his and the charged air between them almost _vibrating_. "I mean that I decided I would have a reward for myself after the war. Whatever I wanted. But I could find nothing I wanted."

Potter's eyes widen. At least he is not fool enough-or simply stupid enough-to pretend to misunderstand Severus _now_. "Until-you want me," he breathes, and leaves it at that for a second. Severus can feel his hands tremble, and he is well-pleased.

"Yes," Severus says, and he doesn't care who's looking at them now, wondering at Potter's strange flirtation with Auntie Muriel (or perhaps the other way around). He knows his smile is pure _himself _now, and Potter's gaze has already seen through the Polyjuice. He will have seen and marked what he needs to.

Potter nods slightly. Now that he's past the first moment of surprise, he's feeling something else. His hands no longer tremble, but they do firm, and Severus finds it no easy matter to keep them imprisoned within his own when Potter abruptly stands and tries to take a step backwards.

"I do intend to have you," Severus whispers. Of course he will try to manage matters so that Potter yields willingly, because the alternative would be comfortable for neither of them. Severus does not want people banging on his door telling him that he raped the Boy-Who-Lived. But he does not intend to give up the chase.

Potter winks at him. "And I never said you couldn't. But you have to _catch _me first."

And he abruptly snaps something out of his sleeve, something long and coiling and as silver as the nets that he uses to wrap up the criminals he captures. It lashes the ground beside Severus's feet, and smoke springs up and writhes all around them. Someone cries out in alarm, and Severus hears others shouting the incantations for water spells.

He pays no attention to the water that soaks him, although he knows Auntie Muriel would. His eyes seek out Potter instead. He knows he has not gone far; he will be somewhere nearby, waiting for Severus to notice him.

There. Potter stands on the roof of the small arbor that Weasley and Granger had constructed to say their vows in, clinging with hands and feet among the pine branches that cover it. He meets Severus's gaze and inclines his head once, a smile flashing across his lips. Then he turns again, and is gone, Apparating in the middle of a leap that should have carried him off the arbor and to the ground.

Severus closes his eyes and makes the expected crisp response to the Weasleys asking if their "relative" is okay. He is smiling inwardly.

_Let the hunt begin, then._

* * *

><p>Severus has assumed that Potter will be more circumspect now he knows Severus is on his trail. After all, he has a more determined hunter than the Aurors after him, and one better at putting together the clues with his nature. None of the Aurors know that the Vigilante is Potter; none of them have the advantage that Severus does.<p>

But it does not happen.

Instead, reports of the Vigilante's efforts _increase. _He appears in the middle of Diagon Alley and saves a child who was about to be dragged off by enemies of his family. He leaps from roof to roof of a burning building and brings out not only the wizards inside out unharmed, but also their Crup. He duels to a standstill a mysterious intruder who breaks into the Ministry and tries to explode a poisonous plant pod.

His most spectacular effort, though, is undoubtedly to round up all the seven remaining free Death Eaters, led by Avery, and drop them wrapped in the middle of an enormous silver net right in the middle of the Ministry Atrium just as the workers are Flooing in for the day. Severus holds the photograph back from his face and squints.

Yes.

The strands of silver netting that trail out from the sides of the bundle all spell a stylized _S._

Severus smiles. It will be a joy to mark the next place of the hunt, his first ambush, which he also intends shall be his last.


	2. Chapter 2

The place of the ambush turns out to be a Ministry gala. Of course, Harry Potter normally never attends these. The Auror career he planned on-and that the Ministry apparently also planned on-never worked out, and he doesn't have a reason to hang around people he dislikes in fancy dress robes talking stuffy politics.

But Severus understands his prey now, the prey that _wants _to be caught, and he's absolutely sure that Potter will be there. For one thing, he has friends attending, and for another, Hermione Weasley receives an award tonight for her work in the name of restricting house-elf abuse. Severus knows that she would want Potter there, and knows that Potter won't disappoint his friend.

This time, Severus is the one who spots Potter from a distance, and he puts down the drink he only ever pretended to sip from and blends into the crowd. Potter wears a burgundy dress robe that flatters him not at all and stands near the dais Granger will ascend to receive her award, tugging now and then at his lace collar.

By the time Severus is halfway to him, Potter's head has come up and he's turned around. Although Severus has given no warning, he thinks, of his stealthy approach, Potter's eyes slip past a few people and fix directly on him.

Severus smiles at him and keeps coming. He wonders if Potter will create a distraction the way he did at the wedding. Or perhaps he'll stay subtle and use the secrecy that has protected him as the Vigilante so far.

It's the latter. Potter grins dazzlingly, daringly, at Severus, but doesn't move from his place at the dais as Severus slides in beside him. He only murmurs, "You keep your promise of a hunt, don't you?"

"Technically, this hunt had only two steps," Severus says, and turns towards him. He knows that Potter will see his hand near his wand, where he can prevent dramatic escapes, if necessary. "One where I told you I wanted you, and you fled. And this one. Can you call it a thrilling hunt when it comes to that?"

His voice is taunting, and Potter meets his eyes. He has his own hands down near his waist, but away from his body, making it harder for him to catch up his wand. "What it lacks in length, it makes up for in intensity."

Severus smiles and starts to answer, but then an unnatural hush falls over the ballroom, and Potter reaches out and squeezes his wrist. "It's time for Hermione to get her award," he whispers. "She would never forgive me if I left now."

_Or caused some other problem now. _Severus can translate the unspoken easily enough. He nods and leans back so that they can both watch Granger, made lovely by the determination in her face rather than the fiercely straightened hair and the swirling gown she wears, walk up the stairs.

The position puts Severus's hand near the small of Potter's back. He massages it slowly, while Potter's eyes widen and gleam. Of course, someone watching from a distance-like one of Potter's acquaintances-would surely see only the usual pride and love that Potter has always displayed for his friend. Nothing else.

Granger makes a short speech that Potter whoops at and applauds, and so does most of the rest of the party, without the whooping. Severus hears none of it. He is busy letting his hand explore under Potter's robes, and find out if the body that looked fit and lithe when Potter was challenging him is really that way.

Yes, it is. Potter's muscles shift and flow like a dragon's coiled ones, and there's the slender strength that reminds Severus of an Antipodean Opaleye. Severus will never have anything to complain about in that department.

He drops his hand as Potter turns towards him, but before he can speak, Granger steps down from the dais and directly in front of him.

"Professor Snape, sir! Harry never told me you were coming." She gives Potter a chiding look.

"Oh, he was a surprise guest," Potter says airily, exactly as if they have arranged this the way Granger so obviously thinks they have, and he winks at Severus over Granger's head.

"It was a bit of a last-minute invitation," Severus says, and gave a short inclination that Granger can decide is a bow if she's feeling generous. Apparently she is, because her cheeks glow again. "Congratulations, Mrs.-Weasley." He remembers her new name at the last moment; it is so easy to think of her as Granger. Of all the students in Potter's year, she has changed the least. "On both your wedding and your reward."

"Thank you," Granger says, and looks back and forth between him and Potter for a moment with a puzzled smile. Severus can feel her trying to decide what's going on, if Severus is being polite because of Potter, or whether it's stranger that Severus is bothering to be polite at all when Potter is around.

Once again, it is of no importance to Severus what she decides. He looks at Potter and says, "There is the matter of the other thing you promised me, besides the invitation."

"What's that?" Potter plays the part of someone who's forgotten as easily as he plays the part of someone who invited Severus. He reaches out a hand a moment before Severus's hand extends. Severus reckons that he must have seen the unconscious quiver of motion in Severus's arm before Severus fully made the movement.

During the war, having anyone who could read him like that, friend or foe, would have terrified Severus. Now it makes him desire Potter all the more.

"A dance," Severus says, and nods to the floor of the ballroom. The Ministry encourages dancing whenever it can, partially because it seems to think that joy and rapid movement will make more people forget about the war, and partially because even the traditional pure-bloods think it a courtly and acceptable entertainment. "This will be good dancing music."

"Well, I did warn you that I'm pants at dancing," Potter says, and nods to the puzzled Granger-Weasley-and follows Severus out on the floor. When they're far enough away that she can't overhear them, Potter bends near Severus and adds, "That's not a lie. You ought to have seen me dancing at the Yule Ball. I can't."

"You think I would care?" Severus murmurs, and turns his head to the side to feel Potter's lips in his hair.

"I could make you look silly."

Severus smiles. "I am past that worry," he says, and then whirls Potter into the first step of the dance, which Potter does perfectly, maybe because his eyes are fixed on Severus.

"You don't care about it anymore?" Potter couldn't have looked more startled if Severus told him that he had a secret second head he's spent all this time tending.

"Not that," Severus says, and again swings Potter in a motion that makes his cloak swirl out behind him. This is really where the fashion for cloaks came from, he thinks, because they make graceful movements in dancing, rather than because they provide protection from the weather; they do not provide that much. "I know that you are graceful enough to challenge me on the dance floor. No one who leaped from that arbor would not be."

Potter's eyes kindle again, the way they did when Severus flung the challenge at him at Weasley and Granger's wedding. His hands slide into new positions within Severus's, and firm. He leans towards him and breathes, "Then let's see what I can make you do."

That is the beginning of the most intoxicating dance of Severus's life, the back and forth motions of their legs and arms echoing the humming of Severus's own heart, the lead switching back and forth so often that Severus can only rarely tell who has it, and the memories blurring into one long stream of heat and passion marked out by certain gleaming moments.

There is the moment when Potter spins him so fast that Severus's cloak coils around him, and then Potter stops and pulls him out with a snap so that the cloak drifts out, perfectly limp again, and tamely puddling on the ground, instead of wrapping around Severus in a way that might have been embarrassing.

There is the moment when Severus becomes aware that many people in the ballroom have paused to watch them, and instead of the cringing and snarling he would have expected to feel under this press of attention, he feels instead a near-mindless exultation. _Yes, see the prize I have snatched, which you cannot even attempt to claim._

There is the moment when Severus bends near Potter and forces him back and back down, until Potter's cloak is almost flat on the floor and his heels are skidding. Potter looks back at him with the same slight, trustful, challenging smile he has worn since he begun this, silently telling Severus to drop him if that's what he's going to do, but at the same moment knowing he won't.

And Severus draws him back up again and into the next turn, and Potter laughs aloud freely and copies him, and Severus is glad he has left the days behind when he would have thought that laughter a taunt.

One thing is certain: By the end of the dance, Severus hears his name in Potter's mouth, and Potter has become Harry.

And there is only one place they can go from here. Severus leaves the ballroom with a possessive arm around Harry that Harry doesn't dispute, and Apparates the moment they're outside, in a place where the Ministry's protective enchantments don't prevent it, Harry still cradled against his side.

* * *

><p>Severus has anticipated the end of the hunt with smiles to himself and imaginings of what Potter will do, will say, how he will fall back with his eyes wide open. Severus even thought it possible that the Ministry ball might <em>not <em>be the end of the hunt, that he might let Potter go and continue the chase in other realms despite his urge to make it brief. He did not intend to do that, but he pictured Potter's trembling anxiety as too delicious to resist.

Now, he knows that Harry's prancing into the net and looking coyly at Severus over his shoulder is more delicious still.

* * *

><p>They are kissing the moment they appear in Severus's home, in the large drawing room that he has fitted up with comfortable chairs for fellow brewers and for the very few clients who need a private consultation. Severus backs Harry up so that his spine falls against one of the chairs and he drapes over it, head towards the fireplace, while Severus bites and sucks on his throat.<p>

Severus cannot get enough of the taste of Harry's skin. It's as though it's the meals he couldn't enjoy, when he ate them in the middle of bickering children and bickering colleagues at Hogwarts. The meals salted with honor and ashes during the war. The healing for the taste of thick poison that moved down his throat when Nagini bit him.

Harry is whining by the time Severus finally pays attention to any part of him other than his neck, and his eyes are intense with need. He tries to take one of Severus's hands and guide it down between his legs.

But although Severus is determined to have his reward and _keep _his reward, he is both more patient than Harry and more in control. He tugs his hand back and wraps it around Harry's neck instead, urging him to open his mouth with quick motions of his own tongue. When Harry does, then Severus enters and tastes him there.

His taste is triumph.

"Severus-" Harry gasps, trying to open his legs and get Severus's hand between them at the same moment. Or maybe he's trying to hang onto Severus's thigh with _his _thighs and ride it. He doesn't seem to know what he wants more.

Severus does, and once again that's an advantage. He pulls back and turns Harry gently towards the bedroom, pushing him with one hand in the middle of his back and one hand on the nape of his neck. It's a good position in that, while Harry writhes enticingly, he can't _quite _get into one where he can force Severus's hands to slip and do something to him.

The bedroom is the most private of Severus's private places, not right off the drawing room, where a curious guest might open the door and see it, but beyond a small room that he has decorated in Gryffindor colors for the pure satisfaction of being able to trample on red and gold every day. Harry is gaping by the time they enter the actual bedroom.

Its colors are deep and pale, the walls both black and white, decorated with paint in a series of rippling rings that let Severus rest his eyes and be startled, both at once. The ceiling is enchanted to reflect the stars that shone at the hour of his birth. Small cauldrons dangle from hooks, and parchment covers the table beside the bed, bearing midnight ideas and notations for experimental brews. Severus wants his room to reflect all of who he is.

Harry stops squirming when they come in, his head tilted back and his mouth open. Severus allows him a moment or so to absorb it. Then he shoves Harry towards the bed, not decorated in special colors although it _is _large and comfortable, and Harry tumbles and rolls lithely over.

Severus was counting on his grace, but he forgot about his speed. In seconds, Harry has his hands on his dress robes, and he pulls them over his head.

His beauty and grace hits Severus like a blast, like the sight of his room might have hit Harry. He reaches out a hand which is _trembling _in the most ridiculous way, and strokes Harry's smooth skin with a murmur of appreciation that he can't hold back. Harry lifts one leg high, and Severus thinks he is trying to show off his flexibility.

He is not. Instead, Harry lifts his leg high enough that Severus can see part of his arsehole, and wriggles enticingly.

Severus loses his head entirely.

His own dress robes all but burn his skin as he tears them off, and he leaps unhesitatingly towards the bed, trusting it to catch him, trusting Harry to be there. Harry is, welcoming him in with eager legs and mouth and arms and tongue; everything that can be open about him is open, and he wriggles again.

Severus finds himself unexpectedly in the right place, and pulls back to gasp. He thinks that he wanted to speak words, but they get lost in the rough exhalation.

Harry seems to know he means caution, but he only grins and snaps his fingers in a peculiar way, exaggerating their motions past each other. A second later, Severus finds his cock covered in a lube that seems to be exactly room temperature, and Harry has rolled them to the side so that he's folded over but raising a leg high again, and Severus is entering his arse, which also seems to be lubed.

Severus has room, and time, for a single, jealous thought: _How often has he done this, if he has those spells literally at his fingertips? _

Then jealousy floods away, burning into emptiness as Harry continues his wriggling and thrusting, and manages to end up with Severus on his back, Harry rising over him on his knees. The sex is rough and fast-paced enough that Severus thinks Harry might be in pain. He would hold back if his own impatient desire would let him.

And if Harry would let him. As it is, Harry bounces over him, doing almost all the work, driving Severus into himself, himself onto Severus, so fast that it steals Severus's protests to watch him. And the _pleasure. _It crashes and spirals over him, all black like Harry's flying hair and green like Harry's blazing eyes and red like the inside of his eyelids when Severus has to shut them in unwilling ecstasy.

He didn't _know, _when he started looking for his reward. He didn't _know _it would be like this. He thought the thrill of the hunt would be the greatest thing, and that he would enjoy a long, slow, exquisite taking. Surely that would be the best thing, the only requirement, for a man whom the war deprived of so many kinds of slow enjoyment.

Instead, this is violent and shining and fast, racing with fire, both the feeling inside Severus's body and what he sees outside when he opens them. Harry hasn't once slackened his pace, and watching him should make Severus feel tired. Instead, it seems that Harry is funneling his fire, his energy, directly into Severus, and Severus feels the urge to mount higher, to fly faster, and not care about the inevitable fall from a height.

Harry will make the fall worth it.

Harry is the first to climax, which perhaps is fitting, given how hard he's worked for it, stopping abruptly above Severus and sitting on air and only part of Severus's cock with his mouth open and his tongue moving in aborted words. Then he lets out a long, hot breath that Severus can feel all the way from here, and comes, and collapses.

Severus feels the burning urge from the splatter of heat across his stomach, and he takes over to drive his hips into Harry as he couldn't do before now. Harry took even that away from him, overrunning fire that he is.

Severus has time for a few good thrusts, to feel how slick and easy the lube makes things, and to sense the trembling tension rising in him, flight no longer but the moment of fall.

It is pleasure, it is _beyond _pleasure. It is release and echo of all the feelings that Severus contained during the war, because he had to contain them, and now they burst free and run in whatever direction they like. Severus's hands tighten on Harry's hips, and he thinks Harry must wince, but Harry only opens his eyes and whispers encouragement, eyes bright again.

Perhaps energy returns easily to _him_, but it does not to Severus. As he falls back, limp and panting, he has the strength for only one gesture. He manages to tip them slowly enough that Harry falls onto instead of off the bed, and then he wraps his arms around Harry, and locks them in place around his waist.

Harry pauses, and looks at him. His eyes are almost too bright to face, but only almost.

"I wouldn't run away without telling you goodbye, you know," Harry whispers.

"I know, but I do not intend for you to run away at all," Severus murmurs. At least some strength has also returned to his tongue.

Harry pauses again, his head tilting to the side like a curious kitten examining a piece of string held out for it. Then he grins. "You think that most people wouldn't expect to see us together?"

"I am certain of it," Severus says, although after their dance tonight, he thinks that some observers won't be as surprised as they would have been. But the proportion of people who can use their brains is still as small as it ever was.

Harry grins more widely. "And you think it would be a challenge for us to go on forgetting about the past and courting each other?"

"Yes," Severus says. He hasn't thought about the courtship, the hunt, taking place beyond the moment he snared Harry, but he sees the sense in the suggestion now. Of course they will have fights, and their bond will need to be established again after each one.

"And you think it would be harder for me to be the Vigilante around you?" Harry ducks his head and studies Severus beneath his eyelashes.

"Yes," Severus says. "As I intend to find other uses for both your skills and your energy."

Harry gives that free, loud laugh again, and curls up beside him. "Then this is challenge enough for me to stay around."

* * *

><p>There are still plenty of challenges from other people that Severus does not enjoy half as much as challenges from Harry. And times when they fight spectacularly, as much of a comet's fire swirling between them as it does during sex.<p>

But always, always there is the endless passion of the fire between them, fire that can be coaxed out with kisses as well as angry words, and there is the magic Harry shows Severus that is beyond what Severus ever studied, and the potions Severus shows Harry that Harry at last has the freedom to pay attention to, and there is endless interest in the way their souls eddy back and forth between them.

For both of them, the hunt will never end.

**The End.**


End file.
